


Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by amarmeme



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Age Difference, Bad Decisions, Doctor in need, F/M, First Kiss, Habitat 7 AU, Head Injury, Survival, Trapped, or maybe not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-19 17:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13708947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarmeme/pseuds/amarmeme
Summary: Lyssa Ryder and Harry Carlyle end up trapped in a cave on Habitat 7 after the shuttle crashes. Lyssa reacts as one does with a head injury...





	Between a Rock and a Hard Place

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Leather & Lace 2018 event for the prompt "trapped together." Please accept this Habitat 7 AU where Harry and Lyssa get stuck in a cave.

The jarring sound of male grunting snaps Lyssa awake. The stranger’s determined efforts assault her eardrums despite her helmet, sore head pounding in time with her heartbeat. Lyssa wheezes as she rises to her elbows in caution, unsure if she’s injured. Her body hurts, a deep ache that echoes through bones, as if she’s still falling, still hitting the ground over and over. The landing lights of the shuttle strobe on and off in time with her misery. Blue then green. Blue then green. What’s visible in front of her is less than helpful. Her eyes follow the moss-covered rock face up, up, up to the crack in the cave ceiling where their shuttle wedged its way through. The small, white ship rests crumpled in its place, one side missing a wing and a door and the nose smashed inwards.   **  
**

_The pilot…_

Lyssa swallows her concern and eases her stiff body around to see who makes the racket behind her. This is not the time to get emotional, but practical. A giant palm-like tree obstructs her view and all she can identify is the person’s back. The entire Pathfinder team wears the same white and blue suits – it could be any of her father’s crew. Except him; Alec Ryder always suits up in red. She thinks dimly that she should be concerned about not remembering who was in her shuttle.

“Hello,” she shouts. “Are you okay over there?”

The grunting stops. “Lyssa, is that you?”

Lyssa smiles to herself despite the situation. She knows that gravelly voice. “Yea, Doc, it’s me.” She tests getting up, taking it one movement at a time. Nothing feels broken, but if something is amiss, at least she’s stuck with a doctor. “Need some help over there?”

Harry grunts then sighs, sitting on a large rock as she stands erect at last, wavering like a new calf. “You could say that,” he deadpans. “I’m pretty sure I’m too old for this.”

Lyssa pshaws, creeping beneath the alien palm tree. “You’re not even as old as my dad. Stop complaining, Doc.” That comment gets her another undignified grunt, and Lyssa can’t help but laugh. She knew Harry would hate that.

“That man’s superhuman. Probably could get a door off his own damn leg.” A shuttle door indeed rests on Harry’s left leg, trapping him between that and a rock. She walks over, crouches down to inspect the scene, and sits back on her heels as Harry stares down at her. “It’s not broken,” he gruffs.

“Let me try,” she says. “SAM?” The AI doesn’t respond. It seems her implant is useless in the bottom of this deep cave. It’s up to her to figure out the best place to lift.

Lyssa walks around the battered door and Harry, sizing up the best place to leverage her strength. Had her scanner been working, SAM would have said where to exert the right amount of force. Head still garbled, Lyssa fumbles around until she finds it on her own. The suit takes a portion of the weight, but her insides still hurt like hell when she lifts. Harry scrambles back though and she drops the door quick, folding over after with hands on her knees.

“Don’t… think… I… have… that… in me… again,” she pants.

Sit down, kid,” he says. Harry pulls her gently by her elbow and Lyssa plops next to his side.

She turns to face him. “Don’t call me that.”

“What? Kid? You’re half my age–”

“I don’t call you old man.”

Harry lets out a deep breath and pulls her in a single-armed embrace. “I feel it though.” He squeezes tighter. “Kirkland didn’t make the crash. Neither did Greer.”

Some of her memory returns now; getting on the shuttle with Harry last minute instead of with Cora, the electric charges in the atmosphere, striking the cliff face sure they were going to die. Apparently two did. Three including the pilot.

Harry interrupts her thoughts. “How are you doing physically? Any specific pain?”

Her body still aches, but falling will do that to a person. The suit only absorbs so much. “I think I have a concussion?”

“And here I was complaining about a trapped ankle.” Harry drops his arm and swivels to look at her through her helmet. “What’s your full name?”

“Lyssa Jane Ryder,” she says.

“Occupation?”

“Armed Combatant Specialist.”

“Address?”

Lyssa narrows her eyes at Harry, shaking her head slowly. “Really?”

“Sorry, he says. “Old habits die hard. I’d do a few tests, but I’ve already seen your reflexes, your coordination. It’s probably a mild concussion at most. You got lucky, Lyssa.”

“Huh, then why don’t I feel it?”

They sit silently after that, looking around the cave and its abundance of flora. Green shoots out of every square inch, swaths of moss covering the rocks, the floor. The twisted, reflective metal of the shuttle is out of place, jarring. So are the bodies of Greer and Kirkland, broken over a jagged shelf maybe ten feet up. Lyssa shudders. How had she missed that fate?

“Your comms work?” She asks.

“Not a bit,” he shrugs. “Yours?”

Lyssa shakes her head. “Maybe we should get out of here. Doubt anyone’s going to find us hidden away like this.”

Harry nods, gesturing towards his ankle. “You’re going to have to help me. Damn thing’s twisted. Can’t really do much for it either.”

She helps him up. Harry leans into her and their helmets clack. “Sorry,” they both say at the same time. Lyssa takes his weight as best she can and they hobble over uneven ground. Once the strobe of the shuttle fades away, they turn their helmet lights on. The cave straightens out helpfully, yet the tunnel to the surface seems to be monstrously long.  

“What did your dad talk us into?”

Lyssa can’t justify an excuse. She’d been asking the same question for months before the trip and now that they’re here… It’s too depressing. Levi’s not awake, members of her team have died, Habitat 7 is a complete bust. Instead of feeling sad, anger courses through her.

“Fuck!” she snaps. Her veins even feel hot. “Let’s talk about something else. You got a wife, Harry?”

It was the first thing that came to mind. Once it’s out, she feels a bit guilty.

He laughs though, teetering next to her as they climb over a log. “Never have.”

She smiles. For some reason that answer makes her feel a little better. “Consummate bachelor? Scam too many ladies in one galaxy gotta break hearts in another?”

“Hardly,” he says. “I’m in the business of fixing hearts, not breaking them.”

“Come on,” Lyssa teases. “With a voice like yours and that salt and pepper look? I guarantee someone’s cried over you before. Plus, doctor.”

“Is that… hot? I thought that was reserved for people in uniform?”

She snickers. The way he says it, “hot,” as if it’s some trendy term and not what people have been calling men like him for centuries. Harry is hot. Smoking hot in a way that’s always distracted her. He’d been the one to put her under in cryo, and after his face was the last thing she’d seen, Lyssa would swear she’d been having sex dreams about him for the last 600 years. She’d followed him into the shuttle on the Hyperion after all. Not onto Cora’s like she was supposed to. Harry had that pull on her and he really had no idea.

“Harry, your patients aren’t coming to see you just for your medicine.”

“Whatever you say.” His words are dismissive, but he sounds slightly pleased.

They fall into comfortable silence for a long time, taking it as steady as possible. She’s never been this close to him before, and although the situation sucks, Lyssa likes the feel of him there, arm over her shoulder, hers across his back. If only there weren’t suits between them. She imagines he smells good. Something smoky with a little spice. He stumbles on a root and squeezes her hand tight. A flutter of stupid, stupid nerves run up her arm at it. Lyssa needs to get out of this cave before she acts any more like a lovesick kid.

Light floods their footfalls. Cracks of thunder echo through the widening cave. Together they shuffle forward faster; green is replaced by grey but they fail to notice. At the mouth at last, Harry stumbles, almost crashing to the ground. Lyssa strains to hold him up. Outside the electric storm rages, a burst of lightning strikes down nearby. It’s a horror scene. Harry’s wheezing, coughing. Confused, Lyssa wheels around in front of him, taking his head between her palms. A crack in the visor is finally visible in the light of day.

“We gotta go back,” she says, pulling him up again. Harry can’t breathe enough to argue, but his body doesn’t fight her. Scrambling, she half carries him to the point where the plants flourish again. His grip on her is vice-like and she grinds her teeth together, insistent on getting him back to breathable air.

At a certain point he refuses to move further, stiff arming the rock wall. “Lyssa, I’m fine,” he says. “I’m fine.”

She drops to the ground then, collapsing in a pile of relief.

“You have to leave me.”

She glances up too quick, horrified at the suggestion. Her head swims a little. “I’m not–”

“Look, you said it yourself. No one is going to find us hiding in this cave. I trust you’ll not leave me here to die.” Harry slumps down next to her on the floor. “You’ll be okay. Find Cora – your dad. They’ll know what to do about this.” He flops his useless helmet on the ground. They both stare at it.

She’s sure they’re both thinking the same thing, but Lyssa can’t make the words come.  _But what if everyone else is dead?_

Harry takes up one of her hands and squeezes it reassuringly. If she can’t find anyone – if no one’s left… At least at the end she’ll be with someone she cares about. She’ll crawl back to Harry, tell him how she feels, has felt about him since they met more than 600 years ago, and then hopefully they’ll screw themselves into oblivion while the whole planet destroys itself.

Before she can think better of it, Lyssa removes her helmet. Harry starts to speak and she covers his mouth with a hand. Replacing her gloved fingers with her lips, Harry whips his head back, shocked. They’re laying basically intertwined, his right leg and both of hers in a tangle.

“Lyssa–”

“Just let me,” she insists. He blinks slowly and she surges forward again, kissing him deeply. He doesn’t pull back this time, but angles into it, placing his hands on either side of her head. Heat coils up inside her, races up to flush her face. They find themselves getting more and more tangled with one another, Lyssa practically sitting in his lap.

He pulls away first, stroking her cheek gently. “What was that,” he murmurs in amazement.

Lyssa grips his shoulders then realizes she should climb off his lap. “Ahh…” She laughs nervously. What had she been thinking? They aren’t dying yet. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone about that.” Harry lets her go regretfully, hands following her path away from his body, grasping air.

“Especially not your dad,” he says. Lyssa flinches, cringing at her dad finding out what she’d just done.

“Don’t worry,” another voice calls out. “I’m certainly not going to be the one to tell him either.”

So hot a moment before, a cold flush floods Lyssa’s entire body. Hair prickles the back of her neck. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah,” Cora says, hand resting on her hips in judgement. “But at least I came to get you alone.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dammit Cora. No one asked you. 
> 
> :D


End file.
